Colossal

Colossal (2016 dir. Nacho Vigalando) is a disturbing horror-allegory concealed behind the avuncular mask of romantic comedy.  The film takes a completely unexpected direction and moves so rapidly after pivoting that it leaves the audience behind.  The experience is interesting, but the movie doesn't quite succeed -- it's reach is far greater than its grasp and the film's standard issue rom-com style doesn't really match its alarming theme. 

Colossal stands for the proposition that most of us conceal monsters beneath a façade of every-day congeniality.  What seem to be mere foibles are, perhaps, signs of hideous psychic disorder.  The picture makes these ideas literal -- the heroine's alcoholism is materialized as an enormous, mantis-like humanoid giant menacing Seoul.  When the heroine steps into a playground in her hometown in a small New England town, a Godzilla-sized kaiju (or "strange giant beast") appears in Seoul and begins smashing up the city.  Exactly how or why this phenomenon exists is left unclear -- it seems to have something to do with a childhood trauma inscribed in lightning flashes emerging from a vortex of storm cloud.  The heroine is stalked, and, ultimately, terrorized by Jason Sudeikis, cast against type as the film's villain.  Sudeikus capitalizes on his easy likeability -- we expect him to be the lead in a romantic comedy in which he and Anne Hathaway, playing the film's heroine, Gloria, will happily hook-up, not without some complications posed by Gloria's former boyfriend, but nevertheless, two attractive people well suited for one another.  (The film's casting is either inept or subtly brilliant:  Sudeikis excels at self-deprecating humor --  he's a blue-collar regular guy, a man's man, and a little too normal and a little too mediocre, perhaps, for the ethereal, even strangely other worldly Anne Hathaway.  She's too pre-Raphaelite exquisite for Sudeikis and, indeed, this turns out to be the case.)  Gloria has fled her domineering boyfriend in New York City, a place where she works as a writer for an Internet blog -- more accurately stated, he has thrown her out because of her irresponsibility.  We aren't sure how to read her handsome boyfriend with his faint British or Australian accent -- is the guy supposed to be a domineering jerk or is he genuinely concerned about his girlfriend's pattern of staying out all night, partying at all hours, and not contributing the rent?  We can't tell for sure how we are supposed to view this character and this ambiguity floats generally over all of the figures in the movie -- they are hard to interpret and the film presents them in underwritten roles that are either intentionally enigmatic or simply incompetently presented.  The film is disturbing because you can't ascertain whether the sense of confusion that you feel is a result of error or intention, an uncertainty that is systemic throughout the movie.  As it happens, the charming Sudeikis turns out to be a vicious nasty drunk and, even, physically abusive -- he beats up the fragile-looking Gloria not once but twice in the film and, in the final confrontation, she attacks and kills him.  The picture, shot as if it were going to be a charming light comedy, turns out to be aggressively violent, mean-spirited and savage. 

When Gloria comes to the small-town where she was born, she immediately latches onto Oscar, a childhood friend and bar owner.  Oscar seems to be a friendly drunk with two friends who hang around his tavern drinking after-hours.  One of these guys seems to be gay, or possibly a drug addict -- this part is performed by Tim Blake Nelson, who, as always, is excellent.  The other man, Joel, is Nelson's sidekick and, even, possibly his lover -- this is ambiguous.  Gloria seduces Joel and has sex with him.  This conduct may be related to her alcoholism but immediately disturbs the audience -- isn't Gloria supposed to be earmarked for the happy-go-lucky and generous Oscar?  But Oscar turns out to be a monster as well, literally a giant laser-armed robot that is also terrorizing Seoul.  Whenever he and Gloria step into the playground to wrestle or fight, their exploits are reflected in a titanic duels in Seoul between their monster-surrogates, the huge hideous mantis figure and the giant, death-ray projecting robot -- in these battles, buildings are toppled and mobs of Koreans run frantically to and fro.  The scenes in Seoul aren't effectively filmed and so don't seem to add much to the duel between Oscar and Gloria played out in small-town Maine.  In fact, this defect in the film is also intentional -- we are supposed to sense that Oscar and Gloria, with all their deadly flaws, are more horrifying than their surrogate beasts, the big monsters fighting in the CGI-gloom in Seoul. 

The film is better than its execution and more interesting than it seems while watching.  The movie asserts effectively the role that alcohol plays in most people's lives -- booze makes us bigger than life, expands our gestures, and liberates a me that is not me.  This is reflected by the monsters in embattled Seoul.  At one point, Gloria says to Oscar:  "You hate how small you've become..." and we see how his erotic failure has made him monstrous, and how his jealousy has become lethal and savage:  those who are made to feel small often compensate by imagining themselves immense and powerful.  It's a cleverly written film:  at one point, Gloria urges the hapless Oscar to open part of his bar that is decked out with a cowboy theme and Monument Valley murals -- "it's so ironic," she says, "like a fucking Wes Anderson movie."  Gloria's immensely delicate porcelain beauty doesn't exactly fit with her depravity in the film and, of course, she is also cast against type -- it's as hard to imagine her as an out-of-control promiscuous drunk as it is difficult to imagine Jason Sudeikas as a terrifying bad guy.  But all of these misfires seem to be intentional and this is why this problematic picture packs a disturbing punch.